


I Lost a Friend

by BirdInTheCave



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Donna and Dick have adopted each other as siblings, Existentialism, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I wrote this on my phone for Amino, Resurrection, also there was supposed to be more, it's not proofread, let me know if you want another part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdInTheCave/pseuds/BirdInTheCave
Summary: Donna isn't nearly as dead as everyone thought. It isn't Rachel that brought her back, in fact, she has no idea what happened. What she does know, is that she needs to see her friends-- her family-- and let them know she's alive. Not to mention dig Dick out of whatever rut he dug himself into.
Relationships: Dawn Granger & Donna Troy, Dick Grayson & Donna Troy, Donna Troy & the Titans
Kudos: 73





	I Lost a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song by FINNEAS 'I Lost a Friend' as that was the song I used to set the mood while typing this up. 
> 
> I wrote it on my phone for Amino but it was set up to be longer, if you want another part please let me know. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story.

It didn't feel real. Perhaps, that was because it wasn't. Not anymore, at least. It used to be, it thinks, but it doesn't remember anything beyond this all-encompassing darkness. Maybe the darkness is cold, like it believes it once imagined the embrace of death to be; maybe it is warm, like a hug that welcomes you home. It can't feel the darkness, it can't feel anything except for a dull, muted curiosity. 

It wonders if it was ever anything more and this is what it had been reduced to. This nothingness with a curious itch it could never scratch. It can't remember. It doesn't have memory. There is only darkness. 

It doesn't know how long it floats-- exists-- in this abyss. Eventually, though, it discovers something. Something with certainty it had never before believed it experienced. It was not an it, it was a she. 

And she had been someone. She had had a past, a being, memories. Still, she feels like they dangle just beyond her reach despite her not having a connection to any limbs. She is as much the abyss as the nothingness is but still, she is just skimming something beyond her phantom touch. 

She stretches a body she no longer has, splays out fingers that are no longer real as she reaches desperately for whoever she had been. She had been someone, she knows it, and she wants to remember. She wants to know, to feel, but right now all she can imagine is frustration and she wants to shriek with a mouth she no longer has but knows she had had once. She knows and she begs to know more. 

_Please, please, please_. A silence she had once thought calming was crushing her, weighing down on a body she didn't have and squeezing the air from lungs that only existed in her head. She yearns to fill it; with screaming, with laughter, with breaths. With anything, yet she can't. Because she is nothing.

She wants to be something. 

With one last push of something that wasn't real, everything that had been disappeared in a flash. 

She fell back into a body that was familiar, opened eyes that were met with intricate columns and carved stone. It was so bright in comparison to an abyss that was fading into the back of her mind. A mind filled with memories, filled with a life she had lived and scars that she displayed proudly. Her chest rose as she gasped in air like she'd forgotten how to breathe and vaguely she realizes that she had for far too long, her red lips parted and air shuttered past and filled her with life. 

She could feel the warm stone beneath her, taste dirt on her dry tongue, see the glow of the sun filtering through cloth and stone, smell the crisp air of what she recognizes as home. 

She could hear the end of an argument, dying on shocked tongues, and she pulls her stiff neck to the side so she can see. She sees Rachel, because she can remember Rachel now, and Diana. Confusion fills her, because they were on Themyscira but Rachel was here and that wasn't right, but it's pushed down when tears fill Rachel's eyes and Diana smiles proudly through a wave of emotions Donna can see filling her bright eyes. 

"Welcome back, Donna," Diana announces as Rachel cups her hands over her mouth to muffle startled and overjoyed sobs. 

Yes, that's who she was. She was Donna Troy. 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  
═══════ ☆ ═══════

She remembers dying vividly. 

She remembers seeing the beam filled with thousands upon thousands of volts of electricity tilting precariously, falling towards civilians-- towards Dawn-- and she had known what she had to do. 

She remembers the pain of that electricity attacking her, of being unable to escape from its powerful hold even after everyone had run to safety. Her muscles had ceased, her body had locked up. 

She doesn't regret it. She'd do it again in a second. For a stranger, for her friends. She was an Amazon and she was a hero, nothing would stop her from saving the people that needed her to. Nothing. 

Rachel filled her in through teary eyes, glued to Donna's side, on the flight back to San Francisco. Themyscira didn't have any communications to Man's World so they couldn't hope to warn the others she was returning. Maybe she'd feel that was funny if this were something different but everyone on the Titans had suffered from enough death, she worried about dropping her sudden life back on them. 

Rachel said it had been a month. A month of pain, mourning, and desperately trying to bring her back. That's what Diana and Rachel had been arguing about. Diana had said Rachel could do it, insisted vehemently, but if Rachel hadn't... what had? 

═══════ ☆ ═══════

Donna isn't surprised that the Tower still lets her in without fault. She can imagine Dick refusing to remove her biometrics from the system, telling himself that it would make it all far too real. Her heart, just now besting anew, aches in her chest. She had caused her friends-- her family-- so much pain with her death. She had tainted their victory with loss. She prays to her Gods, knowing that they listen, and begs them to let her return help heal the damage she'd wreaked.

Rachel is a solid presence at her side, fidgeting and hesitant but excited to be home, and Donna fills herself with Rachel's pride and excitement. Themyscira was home but that didn't make the Tower any less so. She, too, was returning to where she belonged and she wouldn't let her death take the comfort of her return from her. 

The doors open and Donna sucks in a breath and steps out.

Immediately, she spots Dawn. Both her, Gar, and Conner sit watching TV on the couch but Donna can only focus on the friend she'd sacrificed herself for. Dawn's eyes immediately fill with tears when she looks up, hopeful and overjoyed, and then Donna blinks and Dawn is pulling her into a strong hug. Donna squeezes back, burying her face into Dawn's hair and relishing in her friend's warmth. 

Dawn hesitantly pulls back, holding Donna at arm's length and smiling brightly through happy tears, "Rachel..?" She begins, but Donna just shakes her head and pulls Dawn back into a hug before the other woman can ask how because she doesn't want to think about how right now. 

Most of her other hellos are filled with the same affection, surprised hugs, and tears. Gar struggles to look at her for a few minutes but Donna had just forced the boy's attention to her and told him that he hadn't done anything wrong and that she was okay. Gar had cried into her shoulder and Donna had held him protectively to her chest until his tears ran dry. 

Even Hank had had a wet sheen in his eyes when she'd found him in the gym, smiling and welcoming her back with an almost palpable sense of relief. 

"Dick?" She asked, feeling like she already knew the answer but she had been hoping to find him here. Counting himself up to two-hundred pull-ups or monitoring his heart rate while he ran on the treadmill for far too many hours. He always through himself into training and work went something went bad, pulling back from the people he cared about because he couldn't help but blame himself. 

"Computer room." Hank nodded curtly, confirming her suspicions. She smiles, thanks him, and heads off to say her last hello. 

═══════ ☆ ═══════

Donna sees Dick sitting tensely in his chair, keeping her gaze on the monitors despite obviously hearing her coming. She shakes her head, knowing he was likely assuming he was Dawn or Kori. That he might be preparing to ignore her and focus solely on his work. Dick was smart, he had to be if he was going to keep up with Batman the way he had for years, but sometimes she likes to think he was just as stupid as the rest of them. 

She knocks on the door frame and he doesn't even bother to look over as he tries to brush her off, "I'm busy." He insists, stiff and certain and oh so tired. Again, her heart aches in her chest. 

"Don't have a second for me?" She asks, and maybe it was cruel but she enjoys the way he whips around to stare. His cold mask is shattered for a moment, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide.

He pushes himself out of his chair, almost vaulting towards her, and immediately wraps his arms around her and tugs her close. She lets him, putting up no resistance as she snakes her own arms around his chest and squeezes back. For her, she's only been gone a little while but she still relishes in his touch. He buries his face into her hair and she buries hers into his shoulder, feeling his body tremble underneath the palms of her hands. 

Rachel had told her how Dick had screamed her name the night she died, how he'd ran forward and cradled her to his chest. How he'd given a toast to her name, promised that they were a family and nothing could tear them apart. It was hard to believe but boy was Donna glad she'd get to see it, too. 

"I thought you were.." His voice is dipped low, the quiet tone doing nothing to hide the way his words quivered. 

"I was." Donna swallows hard, "I don't know how, but I'm here now." She pulls back, meeting Dick's eyes and smiling sadly as the devastation in his eyes. Death could destroy someone, it had destroyed a good lot of the Titans, but death had shaped everything Dick was. He felt he carried it with him, that death. She knew. It was her job to know. 

"I thought you knew everything?" He teases, trying to redirect her attention from his pain. She knew he was smart but he had to know better than that. 

"I never said I knew everything, Boy Wonder." She shakes her head fondly, stepping back and tucking her hands into the pockets of a leather jacket Diana had let her barrow. It was big but it smelled like home, like the Amazons-- like Diana. 

Dick nods, "Ah, yes, of course." He swallows thickly, obviously forcing down the lump in his throat. "Please, why is it you're better again?"

Donna doesn't hesitate to take the bait, "Older, Smarter, Prettier." She lists with ease, the words more familiar on her tongue than the blessings of the Gods that ran through her. 

A fresh pool of tears coated Dick's eyes though he didn't dare let even one fall, a sad smile twitching his lips up. "Never thought I'd hear that again." He confesses, voice straining as he works to reel in his emotions. 

"Can't get rid of me that easily."

For a moment, they just stare at each other. Neither speak of their mutual tears or how they refuse to shed them, allowing a second to blink them away and push down the pain that had momentarily surfaced. 

"Are we welcoming back Wondergirl?" He asks, still quiet but there were no traces of that crushing sadness in his voice. 

Donna shakes her head, looking down. "No. No. I'm not her, anymore. I haven't been in a long time. We aren't sidekicks anymore." 

"No, we're not." Dick agrees. "But if you aren't Wondergirl, who are you?" He asks, crossing his arms in such a Dick Grayson way Donna couldn't help but scoff. 

She looks up and meets his gaze, daring him to question her as she responds, "Troia." 


End file.
